Armenian Americans call for Karabakh peace on national call-in-day

PanARMENIAN.Net - A message of Karabakh peace will be delivered to Members of Congress from across America on Wednesday, October 21, as Armenian Americans participate in a national call-in-day to support of a Congressional letter. Authored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), the letter urges the implementation of concrete pro-peace measures along the borders between Armenia, Artsakh, and Azerbaijan border, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

The call-in day follows weeks of local and online outreach by supporters of Artsakh peace across the U.S. in the aftermath of Azerbaijani shelling of villages on the Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Republic border at the end of September. These Azerbaijani attacks claimed at least 7 lives in two days. Over 60 Armenians and Azerbaijanis have been killed so far in 2015.

The Royce-Engel letter, addressed to Ambassador James Warlick - the U.S. representative to the OSCE’s Minsk Group tasked with reaching a resolution of Nagorno Karabakh-related security and status issues - specifically calls for the U.S. and OSCE to abandon their failed policy of false parity in responding to acts of aggression, noting that: "The longstanding U.S. and OSCE practice of responding to each new attack with generic calls upon all parties to refrain from violence has failed to de-escalate the situation. Instead, this policy of artificial evenhandedness has dangerously increased tensions. There will be no peace absent responsibility."

The letter outlines three concrete pro-peace steps that would, "in the short-term, save lives and help to avert war: an agreement from all sides not to deploy snipers along the line of contact; the placement of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-locator systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line of contact; the deployment of additional OSCE observers along the line of contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.”